Teaching (and learning) to Write

Week Eight. Challenge Writing Tasks. Drafts above. Slightly less drafty drafts below. I. Using Rosenthal's   Encyclopedia of a Life    as mentor texts, my own memoir-driven encyclopedia entries. Mass (n.) The event every Sunday, except when it’s Saturday, where all the Hayes people I actually know pile into a pew. Our pew ( our pew because we sit there, in that back corner of a too-big church, every Sunday, except when it’s Saturday) welcomes us more than the other people sitting in the other pews. Now the Hayes people are split, they are there and I am here, and so our pew is now only their pew and my pew is on Lumpkin street, where the people are more inviting than the traditional wooden seating. Coffee shop (n.) A location of the most peaceful moments of anxiousness with papers or friends or both. Conversations are made and overheard, dimly lit by dull bulbs overhead and shining with caffeine-riddled enthusiasm.   Bed (n.) A haven f...

Week Seven. Challenge Writing Tasks. The first challenge task follows the 8th Grade Language Arts Standards and the second follows the "Found Words" prompt. These are not transferred into a typed revised version. Below is an entirely different writing assignment. The Theoretical Writing Classroom and the Experienced Writing Classroom When I read the line   “Sometimes it feels like our writers are waiting and waiting and waiting instead of writing and writing and writing”  (McGee 126), I paused to sketch out an " !!! " and underline it. YES, I thought. This is exactly what's happening. What's the magical answer?  (My gut reaction was to practically imagine myself a superhero- I was so ready to swoop in and save the day with whatever came next.) Surprise; there isn't a magical answer to student hesitance and resistance in the right class. Oof. But! There are methods that may prove helpful when introduced to the classroom. I th...

Week Six. Challenge Writing Tasks. As usual, drafty draft above, less drafty drafts below. The first task follows  300 Love Letters as mentor texts. I chose the  color  yellow, chose to write a love letter for a stranger. But, there's something about letters... a particular essence they maintain for the simple reason that they are the product of your hand unmediated by the computer, by the distance and impersonality of Times New Roman (font size twelve, always). So I'm not going to take that away from my little letter. It will stay a drafty written draft. ✎ The second task is a short, (hopefully) cohesive piece that integrates (or tries to)  unusual words  fluently. Clicking on differently colored words will direct you to their definitions. This isn't  knismesis this is  a  gargalesis She is forced to a position of  decubitus As his laughter reverberates like  brontide She pleads giggle...